Magenta Monster

It is that time of year again – the point at which I loose social media followers in droves and send my family a little insane – it is National Novel Writing Month. I started writing at midnight and though I posted on FB and Twitter about it I did not allow myself to blog about it.

Nope that was something that had to wait until I had written all the words I needed for my first stint.

Midnight came and I left the game I was playing and began typing and writing and thinking that this is an insane obsession but that I love it.

I will be aiming for the 50, 000 words in a month and will be hopefully over shot and write 2000 words min a day but that can be rather tricky as I have found in previous years. Even though I know I can write 10, 000 words in a day – I have achieved this several times – in recent years namely when I have attended the Stroud Writing Space day writing retreats.

There is one booked for me, for the very end of November and I feel immensely privilaged to have this chance. There have been Nano’s where I would not have been able to pay for a coffee at the coffee shop writings let alone a retreat.

But for now it is back to the hot keyboard and write write write.

It’s Halloween and we have a sort of party in progress – an All Hallows Read – an idea started by Neil Gaiman where people give horror books for Halloween. We haven’t been very good at remembering the books as the kids – ours and other peoples hurtle about or sit sit absorbed into the world of films.

The plan for later ie once the youngest ones are a sleep is to play my broth-in-laws board game Ancient Terrible Things. We have been looking forward to this for a while now and I at least hope it may help get the creative juices flowing. For once those midnight bells do toll it is time for the writers amongst us to retreat.

For this is the night before the writing challenge National Novel Writing Month were people as insane as me and my husband, attempt to write a novel or rather 50, 000 words in a month.

I will be attempting to write through until dawn.

And of course this is on the heels of GothNoWriMo which was my writing challenge and warm up for October – an attempt to write a Gothic Novel in a month (30-70 K words). I broke the lower end but did not even scrap the higher end.

But I am now nicely warmed up for my writing challenge of the year.

The oil dark bird with matt black beak and shining eyes landed on the headstone, now slumped wonky into the subsiding ground. The corpses angels that had been set to guard had rotted away, their graves were collapsing and nature was taking back that which it had so briefly let the people of this world have.

It was night and a purple dark night at that, the sky seemed streaked with the darker colours and the stars where ice pricks, twinkling at the bottom of some long dead sea. A ghostly howl echoed through the old mausoleums, telling that the winds had risen once more.

The Inbetween Time had come, it was a fringe moment, when the worlds could change. A rushing whoosh and screech of whistle broke into the night, the demonic bird flew away and a lonely rag fluttered in a tree, it had rotted to cobweb tendrils but it still served as the signal.

The ghost train pulled in, pearlised and sheer, it fluoresced, dark pits of eyes stared with longing from the carriage windows. A single occupant was allowed to exit. He was a slither of darkness that flittered from one crook of shadow to the next. The train departed fading as it chugged away leaving the echo of a smell.

A chittering started from the far side of perception and coalesced itself into a second form. It was made of the dirt eaters and rotten death feeders – the bugs and the mites and the worms, it was bity and insecure and it awaited the shadow with impatience.

The dark wraith finally stepped forward hurting the eye as it sucked in all light, but if one had been able to gaze on the form, it would have had a tall willowy outline, two arms, two legs, a slender waist. It was male, and it was angry, but it was also afraid and alone. The writhing bug person clicked and squeaked and was presented with a copper coin, a little robin red breast was embossed in the pitted metal. The creature nodded and tossed it carelessly into the air. In the flip the coin changed, now it was larger and smoother and showed a moon and a pie.

It was handed back, the blackness sagged and sunk into the shadows once more to wait, it’s train would be soon, a meer eon until the next conjunction, until the next ghost train could stop at Grave Junction. One eternity or two and it would reach it’s destination. But like all the travels in the realm of the dead, it wasn’t sure if it was better off not getting there but the journey had wearied it’s spirit, distorted it and it just craved the end of the line.

Halloween when all things pumpkin appear – use this picture of a pumpkin flag to inspire your own little spooky tale!

The tears had tired her eyes, she looked at the devastation, the limbs and blood scattered across the floor of the church. It had been such a good plan, but it turned out the old legends had been wrong, so very very wrong. Her fingers were sticky with gore and she tried to scrub it off on her splattered cloths, it was pointless.

Trembling she looked at the light streaming in through the stained glass, the sun had risen and with it she had returned to herself, not exorcised, not cleansed and those who had assured her they could help were ripped to shred and flowing through her veins. It was like the solstice at the henge all over,as if 20 years had just not happened, she cried herself to sleep and had been lucky no one had found her.

Ultimately the issue was that she was selfish there was no way she was going to walk into the light, give up her own life, but now she had sent over a hundred souls to their doom. She still wanted her life back.

She had been trying to get it back for over three decades, looking at the carnage she wondered if she should just give it up, she would have been an old lady by now – possibly even dead. She did not want to be dead. She cursed the man who had cursed her, and blushed at the thought of his touch, if he had not abandoned her… if he had only warned her of what she would become. Maybe back then she would have ended it all, but not now, not with the blood singing within. After a massacre she was always so alive.

Walking slowly around she wondered how long it would be before her deed was discovered, she opened the font and smiled when she saw that the water was still in it. She washed as best she could, pretty sure she was just smearing the blood further. In the vestibule she found the priests clothes they had changed out of in favour of their robes. She did the best she could wearing ill fitting trousers, she took loose cash, there was little of it. She left the jewellery knowing the relatives would want such trinkets and just how traceable such things could be.

Tiredness washed over her, with the sun up she felt the need for sleep but didn’t dare. She picked up a bible, and scritched the blood she could from it’s cover. Then sat and began to read, they had sworn to her that the answer to her peril was within this books cover, the hippies had sworn it was the vibration of the stones at solstice, the ice people had taken her to wilds and wastes where the colours glowed in the sky. Somehow it had all been lies and yet humans had been dealing with this ravaging disease she was since written records had begun.

Bitting her lip with now mercifully short and blunt teeth she absorbed the old names and lists of genealogies looking for answers. She began to formulate a plan. No more running from what she was, maybe if she fed a little here and there she would not get the all consuming hunger, would not get the blood lust and remember nothing of the night. And if she couldn’t control it then she would become a prison guard or something and contain the murders, or try animals or something.

A phone trilled and the guilt welled up to choke her once more as she thought of family and friends and the horror she had caused, she could smell the slaughter, iron and gut burnt her nostrils. It was time to jump the country, she would swim the channel and wander the deep woods that still existed in Europe. He’d been from there, Russia or somewhere, she’d found the ice people just after he’d infected her. Thanks to her there was now one less tribe, she was not proud. But if she could find him maybe he could help her control it?

The seconds ticked away slow and painful and she froze in fear as the door rattled and people called and then they thankfully went away. She waited and the day diminished and at the dying of it she opened the door, looked back on her would be saviours and sighed. She set her tired eyes on the horizon and started walking, once out of the church yard she began to run, the blood made her so alive. It was a new night and the wind was in her hair, she screamed at the moon.

The Warrior Monks had set out on a mission, to sack the holy lands and return the sacred texts to The Holy Roman Empire, but then they had seen the incursion of Heresy, the Christians who weren’t, the ones so like the Prophet Worshipers and the Christ Killers.

There was no room for the Orthodox Church or any other false church, it was a distorted thing and they had slain the population and taken the the treasures for the Pope.

Of course they kept a few of the texts for themselves, they needed them. To call the Mother forward, to see their blessing realised here on Earth, in the flesh. In order to be given the next job, the next fight. They bathed now in blood shed and one of them was now far older than their appearance would suggest.

The eastern magics were a wonder, and not for the people, not if Christendom was to survive and survive it must – if eternal life was to be known, but they could never know, the farmers and sheep herders, the merchant and smith. The Pope had his own magicians working on solutions but they had more than enough texts to work their way through.

Now the Monks bowed at the alter having lit the incense and quenched the cinders of the cross with virginal blood. The text had not asked for the blood but they had added that themselves, though they had taken the virginity out of it but blood took a while to circulate so probably it still counted. Sticky steam and smothering perfume filled the air, and it rose within the Byzantine Cathedral. It was not of their style and they had killed the brethren, their bodies littered the steps below them.

Feeling smug they began the chant, stilling their minds and calming the body, they sang a hum that stuck in the mind and ripped down the barriers. The smoke swirled in non-existent currents, spiralling upward, it appeared to glitter in the coloured light that barely glowed through the large windows.

It was the wings that formed first, great sprawled and heavily -feathered things, just a suggestion in the illumined wisps. Then a torso and head, a beautiful chiseled chin and plump cheeks, hair in riverlets, loose and drifting in the air currents.

‘Our Lady!’ cried one Monk, her eyes shifted to him and glowed a deep crimson and her mouth opened in a pointed smile.

‘You bring me forth,’ she rasped, ‘In blood!’ A scream seemed to blast them from beneath hearing, each thought they had imagined it.

‘Yes blessed virgin!’ they replied. A smell of warm urine washed over the room as a puddle formed on the stone beneath another of the gathered men, they all ignored it.

Her deep laugh echoed through the building, quivering the dust and the spiders from their hiding places. There was a strange after resonance, it seemed to be crying.

‘Bring me my new body!’

There was a pause, ‘we… we have none, H.holy Mother.’

Her roar was pain and rage, ‘find one before the dawn!’

‘We will!’ They cried and stood, one of them slipped on the puddle cracking his skull and adding his own blood to the formation of the sacred Mother he adored.

It did not take long to find a girl, their army had been amassing what they had left of the pretty women of the city, at their camp. The girl was small but healthy, she fought and struggled and bit all the way.

Her dark eyes accused them as they tied her to the alter.

‘How do you need her blood spilt My Lady?’ the eldest Monk asked.

‘Painfully,’ came the reply, the echo seemed to say no. They bled out the victim with a thousand small cuts and laughing the smoke effigy laced its way into the ragged body shortly before dawn.

The cuts miraculously healed and the large eyes opened, she smiled, little pointed teeth had grown in her mouth and her tongue tip touched them. She gestured for one of the men to kneel before her, this he did eager for his reward. She slipped her teeth in and sucked and sucked, he jerked and spasmed but could not draw back from the small child-woman who should have been nothing to cast aside.

The others watched and as the body tumbled from her arms, two fled, the remainder, the eldest bowed his head and feeling her shift towards him quickly asked, ‘how many sacrifices should I bring back with me?’

She licked her lips with hunger but paused, ‘three this morn, three I shall consume to grow to fullness and then we shall begin.’

The echo had gone from her voice but not from her eyes, the Monk however was already formulating plans on how to feed the creature he had summoned and did not notice.

Use this picture as the basis for a story of your own.

Saskia looked down at her long acrylic nails and smiled, they were a work of art, pure and simple, the purple gleamed and faded to a lavender and then a deep blue, on one nail a blue cat arched with green gem eyes and on another there was a shadow suggestion of a crooked castle. Bats and spider webs frosted in glitter hung from the pound shop jewellery she wore and her dress was a purple satin lovely with spider web lace, her hair a cloud of copper red with a blonde streak everyone thought was bleached in.

Holding up a mirror she slapped bright red lippy on and smiled. Her nails set it off though! They really really did!

But the most delicious thing about them was that if she hadn’t gone to have them done she would not now be going to this party. She slipped a stockend foot into a pointy toed boot and carefully zipped in up, then the other foot and she was ready and trying not to linger by the window, she wanted to appear aloof and not egore. She failed as she scrambled excitedly to the door and let Nina in, they looked each other up and down, taking in slinky dresses and over fashioned hair and smiled in unison and left clip clopping their way down the rain sleeked streets.

Saskia couldn’t help but smell the sort of bonfireness of the night and the frost that wasn’t quiet there. Nina herself smelt of apples and the night was a glorious sparkly of street lamps in the haze. The party was not far. The cobble stones were a trial in heels, they could have avoided them but then there would have been no excuse to hold hands. Neither dropped the grip once they were on the tarmac beyond.

They could see the people spilling into and out of the party, all glossed costumes and warm light, a smoke bloom hoovered around the heads of clustered cold smokers. It suddenly all seemed very load and invasive. Holding back finally Nina asked, ‘Do you want to get dinner first?’

She nodded and then sagged, ‘I don’t really have enough cash for a big meal I spent it all on…’

Nina smiled at her, thick purple lipstick making her lips look bigger than they were and her teeth seemed to glow in the streets half light, ‘you spent it all on having your nails done didn’t you?’ she asked with a slight laugh, Saskia nodded suddenly shy.

‘I’ll cook then!’ Nina stated and began tugging her down a side street. There were as many street lamps here and pools of darkness seemed to great them. They linked arms and felt the warmth of one and other. A drizzle started making the night miserable, Saskia began to shiver and then the rain sluiced down, they dived for the rail way arch that had mostly had workshops built within it. Huddled they laughed at their stupidity, Nina stroked her cheek and Saskia could not resist the burnt sugar smell of the woman, their lip sticks smeared it a tooth clincking kiss, she found herself pinned against the wall as the kissed deeper and longer and felt warmer.

Giddy they looked out at the night as a premature firework exploded, the rain was not so heavy now. Shyly they tottered towards Nina’s house and the promise of dry towels and hot drinks lay, they were going to have a different sort of party, just the two of them, they’re would of course still be pizza.

The Moon was bright and huge in the sky, an orb of imperfection and desire, Mel laughed in pure joy, a sound that rarely passed her lips, as she skipped out of the door to follow the liquid silver light across the landscape.

Her black taffeta dress, hung around her emaciated frame and flowed in winds that could not be seen, eddies of the mind thought that were thick that night. She herself glowed white like bleached bone of the alchemist and her hair – a rainbow of ravens wing as it flew in tendrils around her fine boned skull of a face. Her eyes were too large for beauty and yet she was. Heartbreakingly so

Every person who lay eyes upon her wished to be swept into her arms, there was something safe there but it was a mournful lonely death with only Mel for company. She had been created for the Artists and the intellectuals, the Scientists had claimed her as had the new Mothers, and she hated them all.

Hated the way they clung to her, the way she became nothing but a safety blanket, they never saw her. Even back in the days when her kind were worshipped, no one ever saw her, no one would pay tribute to one such as she. She was an counter, an absence, a space to think and be still in.

Her darkness grew but sometimes, like when the moon was full and large and near to the ground, then she could be free of their needs. Then she could see her mother, Selene was always waiting for her, crying tears of dew and frost at her daughters lack within the Celestial Spheres.

And tonight was extra special, there was a conjunction and it was her birthday, there was to be a party. The third ever in her life.

Melancholy loved parties but no one ever invited her, they found the quiet wraith reading in the corner to be disconcerting. But that was mortals and this was different, she wondered what present her mother had gotten her as she chased the moon beams.

Just a quick reminder that it is your last chance to order the physical copy of The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry if you want it for Halloween 🙂

This is where you order